Marty Bergmann, director of Natural Resources Canada's Polar Continental Shelf Program was among the victims in Saturday's crash of a First Air Boeing 737 that was attempting to land at Resolute Bay in the high Arctic.Winnipegger Martin Bergmann was director of the Polar Continental Shelf Program. (Facebook)

Twelve people were killed and three survived with serious injuries when the chartered aircraft went down as it was reportedly landing at Resolute Bay in fog.

Bergmann was to have met with Gov. Gen. David Johnston Sunday and was to have given him a tour of the Polar Continental Shelf Program facility in Resolute Bay.

He also was to have given a tour of the facility to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had been scheduled to arrive in Resolute Bay on Monday.

Manitoba MLA Rob Altemeyer, a family friend, said Bergmann's family and friends are shocked by the news.

Bergmann had four children.

Michelle Anderson, another family friend, said Bergmann would typically build a backyard hockey rink for his children at their St. Vital home. He was a wonderful father, she said, and was very passionate about Canada's North.

"He would do anything for his family," she said. "He was the kind of guy who dreamed big in all areas of his life. What I always admired about Marty was that it seemed like he could talk to anybody from any walk of life and find common ground very quickly. He put people at ease very quickly," said Anderson.

CBC North reporter Patricia Bell had known Bergmann professionally for 12 years and described him as "a heart on two legs" who loved the north.

CBC's chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge said he first crossed paths with Bergmann five years ago at an airport in Frankfurt.

"I was between flights and within 10 minutes he had talked me into doing this series off an icebreaker going through the Northwest Passage," said Mansbridge, who described Bergmann as wonderfully warm person and a great ambassador for the north. Their friendship blossomed, said Mansbridge, who called Bergmann a key resource with a vast knowledge of northern Canada.

"I can say without a word of a lie, the stories I've most appreciated doing, felt the most excitement doing … were stories I did in the Canadian Arctic — all of which were inspired by Marty Bergmann."

The Polar Continental Shelf Program organizes transportation, equipment and other logistical services for scientists and other researchers working in Canada's North. The program supported more than 1,100 researchers from Canada and around the world.

Maj. Steve Wright of the Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife, shown here in the Operations Room of this past August's Operation Nanook military exercise in Resolute Bay, had spent a year planning a MAJAID or Major Air Disaster. This was to be the central exercise of Op Nanook this year, which tackled a simulated oil spill in 2010. But Op Nanook ended up dealing with the Aug. 20 crash of First Air flight 6560. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Within minutes of hearing that an aircraft appeared to have crashed on Aug. 20 near Resolute Bay's airport, firefighters had jumped into their ready gear — shown here — and sped off in their fire trucks to get as close to the crash site as possible. However, the site proved to be inaccessible to the specially equipped trucks, so firefighters ended up running down to the crash site with fire extinguishers. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

A firefighter walks through the remains of 737 jet which flew First Air's flight 6560 into Resolute Bay on Aug. 20 and crashed — this view resembles the scene which Major Steve Wright of the Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife saw when he finally went out to the crash site a few days after the Aug. 20 crash, while killed 12 and injured three. (FILE PHOTO)

YELLOWKNIFE — Major Steve Wright was ready to bite into a “juicy hamburger” on Aug. 20, his first since arriving in Resolute Bay for this past August’s Operation Nanook, when, looking out the windows of the dining hall at the Polar Continental Shelf Program’s residence, he saw the camp’s firetrucks speed by.

Maj. Wright dropped his hamburger, headed down to Op Nanook’s operations room — a nearly windowless room crammed of maps, telephones and desks for various branches of the Canadian Armed Forces involved in Op Nanook.

Maj. Wright wouldn’t stop to eat again for many hours.

Firefighters and their specialized firefighting trucks had headed out at the first news that an aircraft was down — “you have to get out the door and try to get information en route,” because every minute counts.

The first thing Maj. Wright was to reach for his telephone when he reached the Operations Room.

That’s how Maj. Wright, attached to the Joint Task Force North in Yellowknife, recalls those minutes after First Air flight 6560 crashed into the hillside near the airport in Resolute Bay at about 12:50 p.m. on Aug. 20.

Maj. Wright called the airport tower and airport manager to make sure the crash had really occurred, before unleashing what he calls the “whole of government” response to the crash, which would involve the 500 members of the military on site for Op Nanook, others flown in from CFB Trenton, the Transportation Safety Board, the RCMP as well as firefighters, Canadian Rangers, police and nurses from Resolute Bay.

There was no panic at the Operations Room: “we just reacted with our training.”

Everyone at Op Nanook had already practiced their emergency response with minor event, a fuel tank explosion, earlier that month— and then fine-tuned their response much larger major air disaster timed to start Aug. 22 as the central military exercise for 2011.

Everyone was “ready to go” after the news of the crash was confirmed, Maj. Wright said.

Sirens alerted everyone in the camp who returned to their posts.

Maj. Wright, who had spent the year before Op Nanook developing the scenario for the major air disaster exerecise, knew the crash of an aircraft was the “most likely” disaster to occur in Resolute Bay.

According to the planned simulation, on Aug. 22, “Nuna,” a Canadian charter aircraft carrying an international expedition with 40 people on board, was to crash into the nearby plateau, about 13 kilometres from Camp Nanook, leaving 15 dead and 25 injured.

“Immarq,” a cargo plane with four people on board, was to see no survivors as it crash-landed in Resolute Lake.

The simulation would have used already existing crashed planes in Resolute Bay and member of the armed forces made up as victims.

The Aug. 20 crash took place closer to the airport than the planned Aug. 22 simulation, but Maj.Wright said everyone immediately adjusted their actions to deal with the actual event.

And that presented immediate challenges of its own.

While an imaginary “canyon” was supposed to slow down response to the Aug. 22 mock MAJAID, getting to the crash site on Aug. 20 wasn’t easy.

Fire trucks had to drive up to a hill, and then firefighters had to run down the hill, carrying fire extinguishers as they navigated through wet, boggy land, to get to the crash scene.

While the simulated disaster was to play out over 36 hours in real-time, the response time to the Aug. 20 crash turned out to be much more rapid.

Firefighters were on the scene within 20 minutes, Maj. Wright said.

There they found the three survivors waiting for them on a rock.

A medical team followed by helicopter within minutes, picking up Gabrielle Pelky, Nicole Williamson and Robin Wyllie and taking them back to the medical unit, which was being set up to carry out triage of the injured.

Search and rescue techicians, a doctor and other first responders walked a line through the crash site, checking for more survivors.

By that point, Maj. Wright had the list of everyone on the jet.

But within the hour, they knew there had only been three survivors.

Firefighters armed with fire extinguishers gathered from around the camp continued battle the fire on the remnants of the 737C-200.

At 9 p.m. that night, Wright stopped to take stock about what happened and what still needed to be done.

What had unrolled wasn’t like the MAJAID scenario: the actual crash took place much closer, with a much more compressed emergency response timeline.

They’d planned for an even worse-case scenario. The Aug. 20 crash was at least better because it took place within view of the airport and the Op Nanook camp.

Today he says “it was good we were there and responded with everything we had.”

In his planning for the scheduled MAJAID, Sgt. Wright wanted to “see where the information goes” and that the “right resources” were in place.

Information flowed well, important because those involved in the disaster response often receive conflicting and confusing information.

And luck was with them that day: luck that Op Nanook was nearby and luck that enabled three of the passengers to survive.

Asked if the crash affect him personally, of course, it did, Maj. Wright said, but “it’s how you understand it and deal with it.”

A couple of days after the crash, Maj. Wright went up to the crash site, to see what it looked like for himself, so he wouldn’t imagine it as the “worst nightmare” possible.

By that point cleanup was underway.

Maj. Wright could see tents there and could say to himself “this is how it was.”

The Arctic is still a potentially dangerous place to “live, work or play,” he cautions.

The Aug. 20 crash drove home his conviction that an emergency requires every person to be prepared and to respond.

His advice: remember when you hop on an airplane flying over the North, dress warmly and bring along a sleeping bag as carry-on luggage because those could save your life. The Canadian Forces will be there to help you, but they might not get there in time — and that goes for any place in Canada, and not just in the Arctic, he said.

Next summer, Op Nanook will not take place again in Resolute Bay, but in the Mackenzie Delta and Hudson Bay.

However, the disaster scenario has not yet been set, Maj. Wright said.